Cite as: 503 U. S. 347 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
In Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980), we first established that § 1983 is available as a remedy for violations of federal statutes as well as for constitutional violations. We have subsequently recognized that § 1983 is not available to enforce a violation of a federal statute "where Congress has foreclosed such enforcement of the statute in the enactment
tion, the B. H. consent decree does not require "reasonable efforts" with no further definition, but rather defines the standard against which those efforts are to be measured. See B. H. Consent Decree ¶¶ 8, 16(a), pp. 12, 20. Thus, the agreement embodied in the consent decree is not inconsistent with the position petitioner asserts here, namely, that § 671(a)(15) requiring "reasonable efforts," without further definition, does not create an enforceable right on behalf of respondents to enforce the clause by suit.
Respondents next contend that the B. H. decree "may also render much of this case moot." Supp. Brief for Respondents 8. Although petitioner here is the defendant in B. H., the class certified in B. H. does not include children living at home under a protective order, and therefore is more narrow than the class certified in the instant suit. In addition, while DCFS agrees in the B. H. consent decree to certain obligations, for example, a ceiling on the number of cases handled by each caseworker, none of these obligations subsumes the injunction entered by the District Court and affirmed by the Court of Appeals below, requiring petitioners to provide a caseworker within three days of when a child is first removed from his home. Cf. Johnson v. Board of Ed. of Chicago, 457 U. S. 52 (1982) (per curiam).
In short, the situation in this case is quite different from that in the cases cited by respondents in which this Court remanded for further proceedings after events subsequent to the filing of the petition for certiorari or the grant of certiorari affected the case before the Court. Unlike the parties in J. Aron & Co. v. Mississippi Shipping Co., 361 U. S. 115 (1959) (per curiam), the parties in the case before the Court have not entered a consent decree. Unlike Kremens v. Bartley, 431 U. S. 119 (1977), the B. H. decree does nothing to change the class at issue or the claims of the named class members. And unlike American Foreign Service Assn. v. Garfinkel, 490 U. S. 153 (1989) (per curiam), where we noted that "[e]vents occurring since the District Court issued its ruling place this case in a light far different from the one in which that court considered it," id., at 158, the issue whether the reasonable efforts clause creates an enforceable right on behalf of respondents is the same now as it was when decided by the District Court below.
355
Page: Index Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007